Diversity and abundance of soil arthropods in Jahangirnagar University campus, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Soil arthropods are an essential part of an ecosystem contributing significantly to maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. The present study was conducted to investigate the diversity and abundance of soil arthropods in selected habitats in Jahangirnagar University campus, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Sampling was conducted at three different habitats, viz., woodland (W), grassland with herbs (GH), and woodland with herbs (WH), from February 2022 to July 2022 using pitfall traps. A total of 9054 arthropods belonging to 19 different orders viz., Collembola, Diplura, Thysanoptera, Odonata, Orthoptera, Hemiptera, Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Isoptera, Lepidoptera, Acari, Araneae, Mesostigmata, Polydesmida, Isopoda, Scolopendrellida and Scolopendromorpha were collected. The most abundant order was Collembola (64.49%) followed by Diptera (12.89%), Hymenoptera (9.82%), Orthoptera (4.73%), Araneae (2.85%) and Coleoptera (1.38%), and the least abundant orders were Isoptera (0.17%), Scolopendrellida (0.13%), Thysanoptera (0.10%), Acai (0.09%), and Diplura (0.08%). Blattodea, Polydesmida, Lepidoptera and Isopoda represented 0.76%, 0.64%, 0.34% and 0.27% of the total captured individuals, respectively. The greatest number of individuals were collected from habitat-W (49.78%) followed by habitat-GH (28.32%) and habitat-WH (21.90%). The collembolans exhibited the highest abundance in all three habitats. Both the Shannon-Weiner index (H') and Pielou’s evenness index. (J') showed the highest score in habitat-GH (H'=1.49, J'=0.5), whereas the least score in habitat-W (H'=1.04, (J'=0.36). Information revealed in this study is expected to contribute to developing baseline data of arthropod fauna in Jahangirnagr University campus. More importantly, this information would help us monitor any change in the abundance and diversity of soil-dwelling arthropods in Jahangirnagar University campus.